Ibtisam Azem

By the end, I was very invested in this little book. I was drawn in most by Alaa's relationship with his grandmother, how he wrote to her even after her death, how much of an effect she still had on him, and in a sense how much she and he had become relics, parts of the archeology of Jaffa, yet his connection to her, his memories of the past, still formed the emotional core of the book. Ariel and Alaa's relationship was also fascinating -- I read it as a symbolic interplay between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and even the descriptions of the cities themselves, or at least the emotions imbued in them, were fascinating to me. The events that take place in Israel after the disappearance were rather credible, yet depressingly so. I did feel that the writing was slightly bland, that some of the female characters — all the ones Ariel interacted with — were superficial and objectified, and I was distracted by how wrong the pronunciation of the Hebrew was, and perhaps by how flat the Israeli characters seemed.… (altro)

‘We inherit memory the way we inherit the colour of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Your memory pains me.’

This is an interesting, thought-provoking novel from Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem, getting a timely English language publication as tensions rise again in the region. In almost magic realism style the book posits the idea: what if every single Palestinian in Israel simply vanished overnight? What the book examines is at the very heart of the ongoing political situation in the region. Mainly switching between two narratives the book, at first, seems to give a balanced view of the situation: Ariel, a Jewish journalist, lives in the same block of flats as his Palestinian neighbour Alaa, a freelance cameraman. Alaa has recently lost his grandmother, who pretty much raised him, and has been writing his thoughts and ideas in a red notebook, which Ariel finds when he goes to search Alaa’s flat for signs of evidence for his disappearance. What we get is a fairly rounded portrait of Jaffa and Tel Aviv and the juxtaposing of two very different religions and ideologies behind the disputed territory.

Ariel is a liberal, who questions the occupation but is a committed believer of the Jewish state, while Alaa and his family’s history lays bare the trauma of becoming a refugee in your own country. Gradually, as it becomes evident that no-one will be returning, Ariel moves into Alaa’s apartment and starts to choose passages of the notebook which he will then use as a basis to write his own book on the disappearance. The symbolism is not lost: here, in miniature, is an act of occupation and re-writing – the very claims made by Palestinians against the Jewish state. There is much made of memory, of belonging and history. At one point Ariel asks Alaa why he stays: ‘Because this is my Palestine, and I want to live wherever I please.’

There is a fable-like, magical feel to the book; the disappearance is never explained, and we are left with no suggestion of whether they will return. In part it causes a crisis of identity for the Israeli state, and this is one of the interesting undertones of the book. Here is a story of identity, but identity forged in opposition to, or contrast with, another. Jewish versus Palestinian – take one away and how do we then define the other? A fascinating take on the Middle East situation which, while it is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinians, attempts to dig under the skin of the state of Israel to understand it better. A brave and worthy read, it will stay with me for a while, I suspect. Definitely recommended.… (altro)